Book picks similar to
Realism with a Human Face by Hilary Putnam
philosophy
nonfiction
partly-read
non-fiction
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
Michel Foucault - 1966
The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths.In the work that established him as the most important French thinker since Sartre, Michel Foucault offers startling evidence that “man”—man as a subject of scientific knowledge—is at best a recent invention, the result of a fundamental mutation in our culture.
Ten Philosophical Mistakes
Mortimer J. Adler - 1985
It teaches how they came about, how to avoid them, and how to counter their negative effects.
Wittgenstein
Anthony Kenny - 1973
Widely praised for providing a lucid and historically informed account of Wittgenstein's core philosophical concerns.Demonstrates the continuity between Wittgenstein's early and later writings.Provides a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein's thought.Kenny also assesses Wittgenstein's influence in the latter part of the twentieth century.Inside:PrefaceAbbreviations in References to Works by WittgensteinBiographical Sketch of Wittgenstein's PhilosophyThe Legacy of Frege & RussellThe Criticism of PrincipiaThe Picture Theory of the PropositionThe Metaphysics of Logical AtomismThe Dismantling of Logical AtomismAnticipation, Intentionality & VerificationUnderstanding, Thinking & MeaningLanguage-GamesPrivate LanguagesOn Scepticism & CertaintyThe Continuity of Wittgenstein's PhilosophySuggestions for Further ReadingIndex
NO
Boyd Rice - 2009
NO dissects 45 deceptive affairs including Rebellion, The Sexes, Individuality, Equality, Peace, The Nazis, and Keeping It Real, all brought to light in a fashion that only Boyd Rice can. If past written collections of his work serve as time-capsuled history, let NO be the words of the future.Debossed paperback.
Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction
Harry J. Gensler
It will help students to think more clearly about how to form their moral beliefs in the wisest and most rational way. The basic approaches to metaethics and normative ethics are related to specific issues, particularly those of racism, education, and abortion. Written in a clear and concise way by an experienced textbook author, Ethics will also be of interest to the general reader.Unique features of the textbook: * boxed key ideas* Glossary of philosophical terms* Chapter summaries and study questions * Annotated further reading and Internet Web resourcesThere is an associated website for teachers and students at www.routledge.com/routledge/philosoph...
Conscious Robots: Facing up to the reality of being human.
Paul Kwatz - 2005
Conscious Robots challenges us to face up to the reality of being human: just because we're conscious doesn't mean we're not robots. So what would we do with free will if we really had it? And how does “being a robot” explain why life, as Buddha suggested, is “inherently unsatisfactory”, despite our luxurious homes, successful careers and loving families? Conscious Robots shows why we’re so convinced that we’re in charge, when we’re really just carrying out our evolved pre-programmed instructions. And reveals the inevitable future, how one day humans will take control of their conscious minds, get happy and stay happy. But it will come too late for you, Dear Reader… so no point buying the book. Unless you’re extremely rich, of course. Then you can pay for the neurochemical research yourself. “Easy to understand and persuasive” “Reminded me of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett”
Heart, Self & Soul: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance, and Harmony
Robert Frager - 1999
Western psychotherapy aims largely to help us eliminate neurotic traits formed in childhood and adapt to society. In contrast, the Sufi goal is ultimately spiritual: Yes, we need to transform our negativity and be effective in the world; but beyond that, we need to reach a state of harmony with the Divine. Full of stories, poetry, meditations, journaling exercises, and colorful everyday examples, this book will open the heart, nourish the self, and quicken the soul.
The Power of your Subconscious Mind and Other Works
Joseph Murphy - 2013
A compilation of works by Joseph Murphy including The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Magic of Faith, and Believe In Yourself
Common Sense: The Investor's Guide to Equality, Opportunity, and Growth
Joel Greenblatt - 2020
It shouldn't take a worldwide pandemic and nationwide protests to bring economic and racial inequality to the forefront of problems we desperately need to solve. But now that the opportunity is here, what should we do? How can we create more equality, opportunity, and growth for everyone? Not someday, but what can government and the private sector do right now to disrupt a status quo that almost everyone wants to change?In Common Sense, the New York Times best-selling author Joel Greenblatt offers an investor's perspective on building an economy that truly works for everyone. With dry wit and engaging storytelling, he makes a lively and provocative case for disruptive new approaches--some drawn from personal experience, some from the outside looking in. How can leading corporations immediately disrupt our education establishment while creating high-paying job opportunities for those currently left behind? If we want a living wage for everyone, how can we afford it while using an existing program to get it done now? If we subsidize banks, what simple changes can we make to the way we capitalize and regulate them to help grow the economy, increase access, and create more jobs (while keeping the risks and benefits where they belong)? Greenblatt also explains how dramatically increasing immigration would be like giving every American a giant bonus and the reason Australia might be the best place to learn about saving for retirement.Not everyone will agree with what Greenblatt has to say--but all of us can benefit from the conversations he aims to start.
Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism
Richard C. Carrier - 2005
A complete worldview is presented and defended, covering every subject from knowledge to art, from metaphysics to morality, from theology to politics. Topics include free will, the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, and much more, arguing from scientific evidence that there is only a physical, natural world without gods or spirits, but that we can still live a life of love, meaning, and joy.
Action in Perception
Alva Noë - 2005
It is something we do. In Action in Perception, Noë argues that perception and perceptual consciousness depend on capacities for action and thought--that perception is a kind of thoughtful activity. Touch, not vision, should be our model for perception. Perception is not a process in the brain, but a kind of skillful activity of the body as a whole. We enact our perceptual experience. To perceive, according to this enactive approach to perception, is not merely to have sensations; it is to have sensations that we understand. In Action in Perception, Noë investigates the forms this understanding can take. He begins by arguing, on both phenomenological and empirical grounds, that the content of perception is not like the content of a picture; the world is not given to consciousness all at once but is gained gradually by active inquiry and exploration. Noë then argues that perceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession and exercise of practical bodily knowledge, and examines, among other topics, the problems posed by spatial content and the experience of color. He considers the perspectival aspect of the representational content of experience and assesses the place of thought and understanding in experience. Finally, he explores the implications of the enactive approach for our understanding of the neuroscience of perception.
The Power of Ideas
Isaiah Berlin - 2000
He was constitutionally incapable of writing with the opacity of the specialist, but these shorter, more introductory pieces provide the perfect starting-point for the reader new to his work. Those who are already familiar with his writing will also be grateful for this further addition to his collected essays.The connecting theme of these essays, as in the case of earlier volumes, is the crucial social and political role--past, present and future--of ideas, and of their progenitors. A rich variety of subject-matters is represented--from philosophy to education, from Russia to Israel, from Marxism to romanticism--so that the truth of Heine's warning is exemplified on a broad front. It is a warning that Berlin often referred to, and provides an answer to those who ask, as from time to time they do, why intellectual history matters.Among the contributions are My Intellectual Path, Berlin's last essay, a retrospective autobiographical survey of his main preoccupations; and Jewish Slavery and Emancipation, the classic statement of his Zionist views, long unavailable in print. His other subjects include the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico, Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, G.V. Plekhanov, the Russian intelligentsia, the idea of liberty, political realism, nationalism, and historicism. The book exhibits the full range of his enormously wide expertise and demonstrates the striking and enormously engaging individuality, as well as the power, of his own ideas.Over a hundred years ago, the German poet Heine warned the French not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization.--Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958
Phenomenology of Spirit
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1807
It begins with a Preface, created after the rest of the manuscript was completed, that explains the core of his method and what sets it apart from any preceding philosophy. The Introduction, written before the rest of the work, summarizes and completes Kant's ideas on skepticism by rendering it moot and encouraging idealism and self-realization. The body of the work is divided into six sections of varying length, entitled "Consciousness," "Self-Consciousness," "Reason," "Spirit," "Religion," and "Absolute Knowledge." A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic. Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work.
Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time
Huw Price - 1996
Price begins with the mystery of the arrow of time. Why, for example, does disorder always increase, as required by the second law of thermodynamics? Price shows that, for over a century, most physicists have thought about these problems the wrong way. Misled by the human perspective from withintime, which distorts and exaggerates the differences between past and future, they have fallen victim to what Price calls the double standard fallacy: proposed explanations of the difference between the past and the future turn out to rely on a difference which has been slipped in at thebeginning, when the physicists themselves treat the past and future in different ways. To avoid this fallacy, Price argues, we need to overcome our natural tendency to think about the past and the future differently. We need to imagine a point outside time -- an Archimedean view from nowhen --from which to observe time in an unbiased way. Offering a lively criticism of many major modern physicists, including Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking, Price shows that this fallacy remains common in physics today -- for example, when contemporary cosmologists theorize about the eventual fate of the universe. The big bang theory normallyassumes that the beginning and end of the universe will be very different. But if we are to avoid the double standard fallacy, we need to consider time symmetrically, and take seriously the possibility that the arrow of time may reverse when the universe recollapses into a big crunch. Price then turns to the greatest mystery of modern physics, the meaning of quantum theory. He argues that in missing the Archimedean viewpoint, modern physics has missed a radical and attractive solution to many of the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics. Many consequences of quantum theoryappear counterintuitive, such as Schrodinger's Cat, whose condition seems undetermined until observed, and Bell's Theorem, which suggests a spooky nonlocality, where events happening simultaneously in different places seem to affect each other directly. Price shows that these paradoxes can beavoided by allowing that at the quantum level the future does, indeed, affect the past. This demystifies nonlocality, and supports Einstein's unpopular intuition that quantum theory describes an objective world, existing independently of human observers: the Cat is alive or dead, even when nobodylooks. So interpreted, Price argues, quantum mechanics is simply the kind of theory we ought to have expected in microphysics -- from the symmetric standpoint.Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point presents an innovative and controversial view of time and contemporary physics. In this exciting book, Price urges physicists, philosophers, and anyone who has ever pondered the mysteries of time to look at the world from the fresh perspective of Archimedes' Pointand gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, the universe around us, and our own place in time.
Neo-Nihilism: The Philosophy of Power
Peter Sjöstedt-H - 2014
It forcefully argues that morality as we know it is a power structure disguised as knowledge; that law is based upon this false idol; and that thus power is, in fact, the basis of all life.www.philosopher.eufacebook.com/ontologistics